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Archaeological Investigations in Ellsworth and Rice Counties, Kansas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Carlyle S. Smith
Carlyle S. Smith*
Affiliation:
Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
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Extract

Archaeological investigations were carried on by the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, from June 19 to August 20, 1948, in the Kanopolis Reservoir area on the Smoky Hill River in Ellsworth County and also along the Little Arkansas River in Rice County, Kansas. The River Basin Surveys of the Smithsonian Institution had undertaken the preliminary reconnaissance and had found more than twenty sites in the area of the Reservoir. William O. Leuty of Ellsworth was helpful in guiding the field parties of both institutions to most of the sites; also he gathered surface collections which were turned over to us.

The Kanopolis Reservoir is situated in the highly dissected terrain which marks the Plains border along the 98th meridian of longitude in central Kansas. The Smoky Hill River meanders eastward, fed by many tributary streams and canyons. Outcrops of Dakota sandstone are common on the bluffs bordering the valley and trees are limited to the edges of the streams.

Type
Archaeological Researches in the Missouri Basin by the Smithsonian River Basin Surveys and Cooperating Agencies
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 14 , Issue 4Part1 , April 1949 , pp. 292 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1949

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References

1 A considerable number of the 93 sites visited by the Survey were also previously known to the University of South Dakota Museum, whose director, Dr. W. H. Over, generously supplied us with location information. Access to collections from sites along the river was also granted.

2 Site lists were made available to the Survey by the University of South Dakota Museum. There are also published references to certain of the sites: Strong, 1940; Will, 1924.

3 Lists of sites on record in the University of South Dakota Museum. Will and Hecker (1944) list sites on the Missouri River above the mouth of the Grand River, and Strong (1940) describes archaeological research in certain villages near the Grand River and below the Cheyenne River. The University of North Dakota has investigated a site on the Standing Rock Reservation, but there is as yet no published account of the findings.

4 The archaeological collections and the files of the Cross-Cultural Survey of the Laboratory of Anthropology, University of Nebraska, were consulted during the preparation of this paper.

5 No attempt is made here to establish pottery types. The categories simply include sherds which are considered sufficiently similar to be thrown together for the descriptive purposes of this paper. When time will have been available for additional study of the pottery, the categories will undoubtedly be quite different.

6 Strong’s identification of historic Arikara ceramics is based on collections from the well-documented Leavenworth site near the Grand River.

7 By this term is meant the ridged and grooved surface found on Plains pottery and variously described as grooved paddle marking, thong-wrapped paddle marking, etc. The straight, high rims with vertical simple stamping are discussed under category C, below.

8 Other sites with Category B pottery which have been recorded by the Survey are 39ST5, where a relatively minor quantity was found on the surface with Arikara pottery; 39ST12 and 39ST23, where it is found with Category A pottery; 39BR10, where the predominant pottery is assignable to Category C; and 39LM24, 39LM31, 39ST10, 39ST21, 39ST26, 39ST27, 39ST34, 39ST35, 39ST36, 39ST40, and 39ST42. For a few of these sites the quantity of pottery recovered is exceedingly small; it is conceivable that further collection would demonstrate that the present samples represent minority types at some sites.

9 Redbird sites in Holt County and Minaric sites in Knox County, excavated by the University of Nebraska, Laboratory of Anthropology.

10 E. E. Meleen, personal communication, and records and specimens on file in the University of South Dakota Museum.

11 See also Strong’s summary reconstruction of this movement from the Nebraska-South Dakota line to the Ankara’s final residence on the Fort Berthold reservation; op. cit., pp. 359-60.

12 The decorative treatment of the characteristic Great Oasis rim and that of category B shows a general resemblance, but the Great Oasis rim is characterized by a unique and very specific combination of elements lacking in the other.

13 For example, Trudeau in 1794 located a Ponca village on the Missouri River a league above the Niobrara. Anonymous, 1914, p. 413.

14 A lower horizon in this site yielded a small quantity of cultural material. The sherds recovered are so few that no characterization of them is possible beyond the statement that they are grit tempered and cord marked.

15 Compare, for example, our Fig. 73: 9 and Dunlevy, 1936, Pl. 8, F.

16 Sherds from 25HT1 in the Laboratory of Anthropology, University of Nebraska, have been examined.